I tried out postmarketOS + phosh on a PinePhone about a year ago. For my own needs, it worked fairly well, except (ironically) receiving calls. It was like driving an old car, everything was slightly jank, but worked, and could be tinkered with - see the entire review. I have to give credit that there has been impressive progress in mobile Linux since PinePhone’s release in 2019, and a lot of it was developed by unpaid hobbyists.

Other than with language models, this has already happened: Take a look at apps such as Merlin Bird ID (identifies birds fairly well by sound and somewhat okay visually), WhoBird (identifies birds by sound, ) Seek (visually identifies plants, fungi, insects, and animals). All of them work offline. IMO these are much better uses of ML than spammer-friendly text generation.

Biktor and Lynxis will be working on OpenIMSd, which aims to bring VoLTE (4G voice calls) to Qualcomm based phones (like the PinePhone)

This is fantastic news, and I wish them all the best. Reliable VoLTE/WoWiFi calls was my main (but obviously major) issue with the PinePhone.

Another FYI: Ubuntu Touch does not support VoLTE at all, thus it might be more difficult to use it in some networks and countries (for example, USA shut down 3G some years ago)

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the responsive UI, the browser, and Cinny (the Matrix Client)

Fossify Messages and QKSMS/QUIK (unmaintained but has worked well for years)

You might enjoy N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. The setting at first appears as fantasy, but there is a sci-fi-like depth to everything. The climate and periodic catastrophic Seasons, the tectonics, orogeny (humans’ magic-like abilities to manipulate heat and tectonics), and “high-tech” of the world’s past history.

Here are a few other interesting green automotive startups that didn’t make it:

• Sono Motors’ Sion: Compact EV with solar panels, power sharing, intended to be easily repairable and included a detail manual. They had prototypes but never went to production. Now the company does niche solar applications.
• Workhorse: Series Hybrid (think Chevy Volt) Pickup truck with onboard power for tools etc (was announced around or even before Rivian). Was a very pragmatic idea IMO. Later sort-of resold to Lordstown. Now company does some other things, like drones.
• Lordstown Motors’ Endurance: EV Pickup Truck with hub motors. Made a few hundred, but they have been dragging it out long enough for Ford to make electric pickups. And the idea wasn’t too original even when it was announced.